Step By Step - Setting Up WordPress on a VPS for Beginners

A step by step beginners course to setting up multiple WordPress sites on a secured and optimized unmanaged VPS

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About This Course

Published 1/2016
English

Course Description

MASSIVE COURSE UPDATE: boost your page load times by using nginx as your web server. I've just added a nginx update to the course. In the same style as the previous lectures I'll teach you step by step how to setup a secure, optimized and extremely fast nginx based VPS.

UPDATE: I've added a 60 page eBook to the course. It's the perfect companion when taking this course. It provides the reference material you need as you work you way through the video lectures. There are two bonus lectures for this month: installing a SSL certificate for multiple sites and speed up your WordPress page load times by installing the WordPress Redis Cache.

Say goodbye to shared hosting and one click WordPress installers! Say goodbye to bad web hosts! Say hello to the only WordPress course that is going to put YOU in true control of your server and your WordPress sites.

Stop relying on shared hosting with a control panel, its bloated, filled with hosts trying to sell you additional products and the cpanel consumes valuable resources that could be better served handling your website(s) visitors. As your site grows some shared hosts will throttle your site and sometimes even shut your site down if your site consumes to many resources. The more visitors you get, the more resources you are going to use. It ends badly, with you looking for a new host and wondering how to move your WordPress sites.

The solution is to move your WordPress site(s) to an unmanaged Virtual Private Server.

The answer to the above: its all done on your server and it doesn't cost a cent! By typing a few characters on the keyboard you will be in possession of your database and site backups ready to move to your new host!

When you take this course, you will soon realize and wonder why it took you so long to move your WordPress sites from shared hosting to an unmanaged VPS. Please don't let the word unmanaged scare you. An unmanaged VPS simply means the host keeps the network connected and the host node running, you are in control and responsible for everything else on the server. I'll guide you, step by step through the process of setting up an unmanaged VPS and then I'll also be guiding you through setting up WordPress on that VPS.

Never used the command line before? Never edited a configuration file before? No problem, I will teach you and provide you with the knowledge you need

I cover all aspects, no matter if your are using Windows or MACOSX. We will download the software, I'll show you how to install and configure the software and most important how to use the software. Prior to each section, I'll explain what we are doing, why we are doing it and in plain easy to understand English. You wont find any long and boring PowerPoint presentations and minute after minute looking at me talking to the camera. Its us and the command line, nothing else. The command line is easy to use, just think of terminal as a very basic word processor. I'll be there guiding you step by step.

At the end of this course, you will have mastered how to set up an unmanaged VPS and install multiple WordPress sites on a fast and secure VPS.

WordPress can be securely installed in under a minute on the same server. Yes!!! a single minute to set up a new WordPress site: 45 seconds to set up the database and 15 seconds to install WordPress. Additional WordPress sites, with a different domain name, can also be set up in under a minute.

This course will give you the knowledge to:

setup your very own unmanaged VPS

you will be able to secure, harden, configure and optimized the server

setup multiple WordPress sites on that VPS

install a new WordPress site in a few seconds and secure that site on the server

update multiple WordPress sites by typing a single command

update multiple themes and plugins on multiple sites by typing a single command

setup your own scheduled backups, no plugins

move you WordPress sites whenever you need to from host to host, no plugins

you will never be stuck with a bad host again

What are the requirements?

This course is designed for the absolute beginner

No prior knowledge of the subject is needed, I'll be guiding you step by step throughout the course.

No knowledge of linux or server administration is required

Don't download or install any software, what you need and how to install it is covered in the course

You should be running a WordPress site already, as this course will not teach you how to use WordPress, it will teach you how to 1) setup a secured and optimized server environment dedicated to hosting multiple WordPress sites and 2) how to setup and administer your WordPress sites on that server

What am I going to get from this course?

Purchase, from any host, an unmanaged VPS and have the knowledge to setup the VPS correctly and most importantly securely

A strong password is the first step in securing your sites. We are going to generate a few strong passwords using random.org. When you are running multiple WordPress sites, it becomes very difficult remembering all the various sites information. I'll show you a simple and easy method that works.

Finally, we are going to login to our VPS for the first time. All we have is the IP address and the root user's password. Step by step we are going build a secure hosting environment for our WordPress Sites.

After you have completed this lecture, you will be able to change passwords, add users, prevent anyone logging in as the root user and how to give a non root user "root" privileges.

Finally, we are going to login to our VPS for the first time. All we
have is the IP address and the root user's password. Step by step we are
going build a secure hosting environment for our WordPress Sites.

After you have completed this lecture, you will be able to change passwords, add users, prevent anyone logging in as the root user and how to give a non root user "root" privileges.

Apache Virtual Hosts allows us to host multiple WordPress Sites on a single VPS. We are going to setup three sites on our VPS.We will create the Virtual Host first, then make the changes at our Domain Registrar so that each sites domain name points to our VPS.

After you have completed this section, you will be able to setup numerous sites on a single VPS and then make the necessary DNS changes so that each site name resolves to your VPS.

Apache Virtual Hosts allows us to host multiple WordPress Sites on a
single VPS. We are going to setup three sites on our VPS.We will create
the Virtual Host first, then make the changes at our Domain Registrar so that each sites domain name points to our VPS.

After you have completed this section, you will be able to setup numerous sites on a single VPS and then make the necessary DNS changes so that each site name resolves to your VPS.

Apache Virtual Hosts allows us to host multiple WordPress Sites on a
single VPS. We are going to setup three sites on our VPS.We will create
the Virtual Host first, then make the changes at our Domain Registrar so that each sites domain name points to our VPS.

After you have completed this section, you will be able to setup numerous sites on a single VPS and then make the necessary DNS changes so that each site name resolves to your VPS.

Its important to monitor the server resources. The CPU and the RAM especially.

In this lecture you will learn how to open the system resource monitor in a terminal window and while your site visitors are viewing your sites you can monitor the server resources in real time. Its important, as its a good indicator of when you have outgrown your current VPS. A server upgrade is a click away with NO downtime.

Finally we have reached an important milestone. We are setting up our first WordPress site on the VPS.

After you have completed this lecture you will be able to setup a WordPress site using only the command line.By the time you reach the third site, you will be able to setup WordPress sites in under 30 seconds on your VPS.

WordPress security is extremely important. I've split the security aspect into four lectures. Please follow these steps for every WordPress site you setup. Security of your WordPress sites starts on the server, then you can look at a security plugin to complement the server setup.

After you have competed this section, you will be able to check and if necessary change the WordPress file and directory ownership.

WordPress security is extremely important. I've split the security
aspect into four lectures. Please follow these steps for every WordPress
site you setup. Security of your WordPress sites starts on the server,
then you can look at a security plugin to complement the server setup.

After you have competed this section, you will be able to check and if necessary change the WordPress file and directory permissions.

WordPress security is extremely important. I've split the security
aspect into four lectures. Please follow these steps for every WordPress
site you setup. Security of your WordPress sites starts on the server,
then you can look at a security plugin to complement the server setup.

After you have competed this section, you will be able to check and if necessary change the WordPress wp-config.php and .htaccess file permissions. You will also be able to harden WordPress by editing the wp-config.php file

WordPress security is extremely important. I've split the security
aspect into four lectures. Please follow these steps for every WordPress
site you setup. Security of your WordPress sites starts on the server,
then you can look at a security plugin to complement the server setup.

After you have competed this section, you will be able to remove any theme and plugin version numbers.

The true power and speed of the WordPress Command Line Interface WPCLI is apparent when it comes to administering a multitude of themes and plugins over multiple WordPress sites. A process that would normally take hours, using the dashboard, is easily accomplished in seconds.

After you have completed this lecture, you will be able to install and update both themes and plugins using only the WPCLI.

What I mean by a Standard Database Backup, is that we are going to dump the contents of our database to a file. We are going to create a file that contains all the database information. Its called a "dump" file.

After you have completed this lecture, you will be able to list the databases and then create a dump file of one particular database, multiple databases or all databases.

Are Automated and Scheduled WordPress Backups possible without using a plugin?

Yes, using the tools available on the server.

Google " wordpress backup plugins vulnerabilities " it returns about 236 000 results. I hope your backup plugin is not on that list. Scheduled back ups the way I'm going to show you, will not consume additional resources or add vulnerabilities to your server like a backup plugin could.

In this lecture we are going to setup automatic WordPress plugin and theme updates

When you have completed this lecture you will be able to setup automatic plugin and theme updates. You will be able to specify when you want to perform the update, every 6 hours, every 12 hours or every 24 hours. You are in control.

Moving WordPress is a skill that every WordPress site owner should have. Most important is to have the skill to do it without plugins. This lecture deals with a situation where the domain name remains the same. Only the servers IP address changes.

When you have completed this lecture you will be able to move your WordPress site to a new server without using a plugin.

Moving WordPress is a skill that every WordPress site owner should
have. Most important is to have the skill to do it without plugins.
This
lecture deals with a situation where the domain name remains the same
.
Only the servers IP address changes.

When you have completed this lecture you will be able to move your WordPress site to a new server without using a plugin.

Moving WordPress is a skill that every WordPress site owner should
have. Most important is to have the skill to do it without plugins.
This
lecture deals with a situation where the domain name changes on the new server
. The servers IP address also changes.

When you have completed this lecture you will be able to move your WordPress site to a new server without using a plugin.

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Instructor Biography

I am Andrew Eaton. I'm former IT lecturer that specialized in programming, databases and systems analysis.

Part of my job involved breaking down and explaining complex technical detail to students. My policy was to try and use only technical detail if it was absolutely necessary to help the students understand the point. I've adopted the same style with my Udemy Courses, I'll use clear concise English, trying to keep the technical terms to an absolute minimum.

My current full time job is administering my 100+ WordPress sites that are hosted on various servers around the world. All my sites are hosted on unmanaged virtual private servers or dedicated servers.